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CounterPunch
January
11, 2003
News from Neptune
Democracy or Corporations? Meditations from Chomsky
By CARL ESTABROOK
As I was saying before I was so strangely interrupted,
there's not much place for democracy in modern America. What
elements of democracy exist are trammeled up by corporate control.
It's even more true now than it was when American philosopher
John Dewey observed eighty years ago that "politics is the
shadow cast on society by big business" -- and therefore
"attenuation of the shadow will not change the substance."
Dewey meant that political reforms don't
make much difference if business domination remains in place.
"Power today," he wrote, "resides in control of
the means of production, exchange, publicity, transportation
and communication. Whoever owns them rules the life of the country,
even if democratic forms remain. Business for private profit
through private control of banking, land, industry reinforced
by command of the press, press agents and other means of publicity
and propaganda, that is the system of actual power, the source
of coercion and control, and until it's unravelled we can't talk
seriously about democracy and freedom."
Democracy and capitalism are of course
contradictory, because democracy is egalitarian and capitalism
depends upon inequality. Democracy means one person/one vote,
as even the Supreme Court recognizes in theory, while capitalism
requires a majority who must rent their talents of head or hands
to another (much smaller) group who are said to have a peculiar
relationship ("ownership") to the fields and factories
necessary to produce food, shelter, and whatever other commodities
they wish. The history of democracy is that it is always opposed
by political and economic structures designed "to protect
the minority of the opulent against the majority" -- the
goal of the US Constitution, according to its principal author.
We have the forms of political democracy
in this country, if rarely the substance. But we don't have even
the forms of economic democracy. Crucial economic decisions,
such as what society should make or build, and consequently what
jobs are available, are in the "private" hands of the
boards of directors of major corporations. We take this undemocratic
control for granted, with the thought that there is no other
way.
"The 20th century has been characterized
by three developments of great political importance," wrote
Alex Carey, "the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate
power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting
corporate power against democracy."
In the US each year more than a *trillion*
dollars (almost 20% of the total worth of goods and services
produced in the country) is spent in a quite conscious campaign
(called "marketing") to teach you that you should be
a docile employee (or student, sort of a trainee employee) and
an isolated consumer, sitting by yourself in front of the TV
or computer screen, except when you're at work (when you might
do the same thing); that it's probably a little dangerous to
have much to do with those around you (except when you're out
establishing your own rather exploitative "relationships");
and that in fact no other way to live is possible.
A now-forgotten German social scientist
remarked at the dawn of the capitalist age, "According to
Adam Smith, society is a commercial enterprise. Every one of
its members is a salesman. It is evident how political economy
establishes an alienated form of social intercourse as the true
and original form and that which corresponds to human nature."
The subtle but quite effective limitations
on democracy were brought home to me in the recent election campaign,
in which I was the Green party candidate for Congress in Illinois'
15th district. What was perhaps most surprising was the unstated
but common assumption that I was somehow trespassing -- invading
territory that by rights belonged to political professionals,
Republicans and Democrats -- no others need apply. It was as
though I had set out to practice medicine without a license.
People working hard to overcome Illinois' prohibitive requirements
for signed petitions for a third party to get on the ballot,
were told to leave property public and private. ("You can't
do that here!") Media outlets that formerly employed me
suddenly seemed to think that it was wrong ("unfair")
to do so. I could apparently talk and write about politics all
I wanted -- on the condition that I not try to do anything about
it, such as run for office.
Democracy means that you have a chance
to get together with others on an equal basis (not just as an
audience), get the information you need, and take decisions that
actually change things. To pull a lever every two or four years
(or even less frequently) for one or the other of two carefully
pre-selected candidates is not democracy. Suppose one wanted
to vote against the Bush administration's murderous intentions
towards Iraq in this election just past -- whom did one vote
for? Both self-described major parties supported the war. "America
has a one party system," asserted the late African leader
Julius Nyerere. "With your usual exuberance, you have two
of them," he said, perhaps over-generously.
Carl Estabrook
teaches at the University of Illinois. He ran for congress last
year on the Green Party ticket. He can be reached at: galliher@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu
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January
4, 2003
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Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
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and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
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by Alexander
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